Is it time to ban LED Headlights

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Over the last couple of winters I have changed from normal halogen to some tricky ones, to xenon and LED, same commute down unlit country lanes

My preferred out of all was in fact the second halogen, cant quote exact model but they wee iirc phillips 130%, they seemed to modify the light beam to be more enhanced in the centre in front of the car.
Xenons and LEDs do provide awesome light if you are only worried about looking just in front of your car, yep sure its like day there, but as its so bright the cut off feels far more marked

My view is after a long disucssion over lunch at work recently due to the clocks changing, we should move to three settings, low, dippped and full. The cars should automaticlly drop to low when oncoming vehicles are at the cut off point
By low I mean something approaching a halogen level of lighting at your dipped target range.

At the end of the day the legislation is out of date. It only references the power consumed, nothing to do with the light emitted. We should be limiting the light to a fixed amount at a certain distance, otherwise the battle is just to have brighter and brighter lights. We should also possibly start to consider them being redder, it has far less impact on night vision that normal light, at least this is claimed but its also partly disputed.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Which is even more reason to revisit legislation on how bright lights actually are.


I think a lot of the disputers ignore factors like the light intensity. Militaries are still using red light, as do quite a few trucks and other work vehicles needing internal illumination. Yes, a bright red brake light will wipe out your NV, but a dim 20 lumen torch won't do that anywhere near as much.

yeah I tricky eh

On my audi the hold assist switches to hand brake after a period, but I am not sure how long that actually is. At that point it turns the lights off as its not longer the manual brake being applied

 

[Akagi]

The other day I pulled over to let a new Mercedes past because of the stupid Led headlights. Shining straight into my eyes via all three mirrors, could barely concentrate on the road.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Participant]

Xenons and LEDs do provide awesome light if you are only worried about looking just in front of your car, yep sure its like day there, but as its so bright the cut off feels far more marked

That's not an issue for systems like multibeam. Once tech like that trickles down, any perceived cut off problem will go away.

For me it's not about the brightness but the direction. Bright lights are very important for road safety at night.

 

[Skorpion]

Yes they are annoying and hurt the eyes. Especially those idiots who also have fog lights on as well on a clear night.

 

[jpaul]

That's not an issue for systems like multibeam. Once tech like that trickles down, any perceived cut off problem will go away.

per previous discussion , eg. below, they are not allowed in usa yet because their regulatory boards a bit more diligent than EU :
issues like dimming speed and dimming for motorcyclists
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/10/11/nhtsa-oks-advanced-headlights-safety/?guccounter=1
https://www.researchgate.net/public...sibility_Glare_and_Measurement_Considerations
maybe the multi techology will mature further as a result of increased market size ?



BTW: Do teslas have adaptive/multi-beam ? with the energy consumption constraints, they may have proudced more efficient (bright where it is required) solutions.
- Necessity is the mother of invention

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Sorry, I'm old and drive an absolutely ancient car from, like, before WW1, innit.... I had to look up Hold Assist. I don't think I ever want a modern Audi, after reading that!!

Honestly its one of those things that sounds like it would be a pain. Once you have used it for a few days its horrible going back to a car without it. But there is nothing about it that requires you to do anything normal than driving as if it doesn't exist should you choose.

It operates as soon as you come to a complete stop with the brake pressed still. Its on lets say after 1 second. So I pull up to a junction, say from a side street, it will engage. Now I can lift off the brake with no thought to if the car will try to move forwards or backwards, and decide if I want to keep the clutch engaged and hover ready to press the accelerator pedal, or if its going to be a longer wait and I may want to take out of gear and lift off the clutch. Assuming I dont expect a long wait and decide to leave in gear, I am now hovering over the accelerator pedal, as soon as I start to press that the brake goes off.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[cuke2u]

Works exeedingly well, but then you'll always get those who still think winding windows down with a handle and a choke are where it's at.
LED headlamps are never going to banned, in the USA they just passed legislation to allow them, as auto full beam had been banned. Like most improvements the technology will only get better...

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Sounds absolutely pointless and more like a second electronic auto-handbrake.... Still don't want one.

Utterly pointless, erm no
You in fact have to have an electronic handbrake to have hold assist (well with Audi certainly)
It basically frees up one hand, or one foot depending on whether you would hold on the foot brake (and accept the car potentially moving whilst you switch foot), or relies on you holding with the hand brake at the junction. Its superior to both those options so how is it pointless exactly?

And lets take at face value the pointless, which would infer its adding nothing. Why would you be so desperate to avoid it with your comment that would wouldn't want an Audi with it. What makes you not want it, because that seems to infer you see a negative from its existence?

 

[200sols]

Honestly its one of those things that sounds like it would be a pain. Once you have used it for a few days its horrible going back to a car without it. But there is nothing about it that requires you to do anything normal than driving as if it doesn't exist should you choose.

It operates as soon as you come to a complete stop with the brake pressed still. Its on lets say after 1 second. So I pull up to a junction, say from a side street, it will engage. Now I can lift off the brake with no thought to if the car will try to move forwards or backwards, and decide if I want to keep the clutch engaged and hover ready to press the accelerator pedal, or if its going to be a longer wait and I may want to take out of gear and lift off the clutch. Assuming I dont expect a long wait and decide to leave in gear, I am now hovering over the accelerator pedal, as soon as I start to press that the brake goes off.

I wouldn’t be without it now myself. Getting in a car that doesn’t have it is like a step back in time.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Mr Joshua]

I wish they'd do something about the amount of idiots who sit on their brakes in queueing traffic dazzling anyone behind.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Outcast]

I don't know about modern cars as mine is an 07 but in our auto trucks there is a button on the dashboard to enable/disable (disabled by default) auto hold. It's not needed because part of our driving test in both car & truck was a hill start.

It really is the height of laziness that people can't be bothered to even press that button to disable auto hold but then I shouldn't be surprised as "those kind of people" can't be buggered to switch off their foglights when they hit a clear patch let alone in a line of traffic !

I swear a "screetcher alarm" should be fitted to foglights so you can't wait to switch them off !

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

On an Audi you do, yes...
But my old 1996 Mercedes would 'hold assist' without the need of an electromechanical 'hand' brake at all......

Maybe, no idea.

Both of which I can already manage perfectly well, even on hills.

But plenty can't. Anyway, thats hill hold assist which is different
That stops your rolling backwards for a short period of time.

Might just be in how you've explained it, but I haven't seen how this is supposed to be superior... It's been a feature of all the automatic gearboxes I've ever driven, bar the crappy CR-V.

Well I have already told you. It either frees up a foot, as you dont need to keep your foot on the foot brake to have that engaged (if your the type to sit on the footbrake), or it frees up a hand as you dont need to release the hand brake.
Of course you could be a really terrible driver and sit there riding the clutch/throttle.
Plus its nothing to do with automatic, automatics have always behaved differently as you needed to keep your foot on the brake to stop creep.
It should also help dramaticaly where you get a queue of traffic and someone bumps the back one, those riding the clutch etc are all at risk of ending up going forwards, this will be reduced (but not necessarily removed) by the car having applied the brakes.

What does it add, then?
It may do something differently, but what does it actually add?

See above, but again your the one who said he would never own a car with it, yet seemingly unable to say why.

I generally find most recent technology in vehicles does more to disconnect the driver and divert their attention away from the drive, than add any particular benefit...
I also find an over-reliance on features like this makes people very lazy drivers... and often very tight-fisted ones when they end up bringing in the broken features to be fixed.

Personally, crappy drivers seem to be crappy all the time to me, but the more you can take away from them the less chance of them screwing up. All in my personal experience.

 

[grudas]

I wish they'd do something about the amount of idiots who sit on their brakes in queueing traffic dazzling anyone behind.

So anyone with an auto box?

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM